243 | Do This First When Your Dog is Reacting

<p><strong>Hey Dog Lover 🐾</strong></p><p>Your dog sees another dog.</p><p>And suddenly they’re at the end of the leash barking, lunging, pulling, jumping around, completely losing their you-know-what.</p><p>And you’re standing at the other end thinking:</p><p><strong>“What the heck am I supposed to do right now?”</strong></p><p>Do you ask them to sit?</p><p>Tell them to look at you?</p><p>Offer a treat?</p><p>Turn around?</p><p>Keep walking?</p><p>Get the heck out of Dodge?</p><p>When your dog is reacting, it’s really easy to start running through every training technique you’ve ever learned, desperately trying to figure out which one is going to make the behaviour stop.</p><p>But before you do any of that, there’s one question I want you to ask yourself:</p><p><strong>“Am I even in this conversation?”</strong></p><p>Because your dog can be physically attached to you and still have absolutely nothing to do with you in that moment.</p><p>And if you’re not part of the conversation, you’re going to have a very hard time influencing what happens next.</p><p>In this episode, we’re talking about the <strong>very first thing to do when your dog reacts</strong>, and why it has less to do with finding the perfect technique and more to do with figuring out whether you and your dog are actually communicating.</p><p>We’ll talk about:</p><p>🐾 The first question to ask yourself when your dog starts reacting<br>🐾 Why holding the other end of the leash doesn’t necessarily mean you’re part of the conversation<br>🐾 The important difference between <strong>physical control and influence</strong><br>🐾 How to recognize when your dog is still able to communicate with you<br>🐾 What to do when your dog is so overwhelmed that you have no influence in that moment<br>🐾 Why creating distance doesn’t have to mean running away from the problem<br>🐾 How your body, movement, position, leash, and communication can help you get back into the conversation<br>🐾 Why there isn’t one right answer for every dog in every situation</p><p>Because sometimes you absolutely need physical control.</p><p>Sometimes you need to hold that leash.</p><p>Sometimes you need to get your dog out of there.</p><p>But I don’t want you to confuse:</p><p><strong>“I physically stopped my dog from getting there”</strong></p><p>with:</p><p><strong>“I was able to influence my dog.”</strong></p><p>Those are two very different things.</p><p>So the next time your dog is barking, lunging, pulling, or completely ove